


The Clumsy, Inelegant Truth of It All

by futureboy (PokeRowan)



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, M/M, Potions Accident, Truth Serum, Truth Spells
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-14 14:23:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11209881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PokeRowan/pseuds/futureboy
Summary: Magic School! AU. They're gonna boss the potions assignment for class... The second time round.[Prompted on Tumblr]





	The Clumsy, Inelegant Truth of It All

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kingslayers (colbee)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/colbee/gifts).



> [RPF disclaimer: Written according to guidelines set by RT employees (to the best of my knowledge). This is a fictional series of events using characters inspired by real people.]
> 
> "JEREMWOOD PROMPT HI!!!! ok so. maybe some form of magic au? where they bond over magic lessons OvO or like they're brought together by their familiars or something cause magic is uhhhhh. Good. - ryan gaywood"

“Tell me that's not a cow,” says Jeremy, and makes extra sure that he closes the garden gate.

“I _could_ tell you it's not a cow,” says Ryan, “but it'd be untrue.”

Okay, so that’s how it is. He needs to rephrase this.

“Why have you brought a cow into our front yard? Why is the cow eating our grass?” he starts. “Are we keeping The Cow? How are we gonna take care of The Cow? Where did you _get_ The Cow--”

“Are you done?” says Ryan, sounding bored. He's tending the ingredients patch with an enchanted pair of secateurs, and _snip_ s every time Jeremy pauses for breath.

“ _No_ , I'm not fucking done, Ry.” 

“I traded some beans for it,” says Ryan, ignoring him.

“You gotta be kidding me--”

“And we needed fresh milk for our class assignment,” he continues. “I actually already did the hard work whilst you were out, it's on the boil.”

“The truth potion?” says Jeremy, forgetting about The Cow.

“Yeah, all we need to do is bottle it. It'll be ready whenever, I just need some help with the wax seals. You're better at them than me, it’ll all just evaporate if we don’t charm the vials. What do you think about 'Edgar'?”

“Don't you _dare_ name The Cow,” Jeremy warns.

“I kinda wanna keep it as a familiar.” 

“No,” he says firmly. “C’mon, let's work some cauldron sorcery and get this over with. We can hand it in early tomorrow morning.”

They head inside - the college is kind enough to provide them with their own cottage, in which they can cast freely. It's a little run down, and it's hardly quaint-English-village quality; it was actually built in the sixties and is weirdly angular. But Jeremy loves it, and it's proven fairly durable so far.

He crouches in front of the cauldron whilst Ryan puts away their ingredients, and takes the solution off the heat. It smells a little like hot cocoa.

“Did you follow the recipe?”

“I'm not an _idiot_.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Ryan appears over his shoulder. “I followed the recipe,” he says drily, “it's fucking... perfection. Okay?”

“You're fucking perfection,” Jeremy blurts out.

They stare at each other for a second. Jeremy gets to his feet, and eyes the hot cocoa-esque steam emanating from the cauldron.

“Well, shit,” he says, “you followed the _recipe_ perfectly, for sure. Coulda done with a fume hood though, if you'd followed the _equipment list_ right--”

“Shut up,” Ryan says sharply, a lovely dark gradient creeping over his face, and he reaches for the ladle so they can begin to stopper it up. In the process, however, he knocks the cauldron from the stand. It topples, in the kind of slowed time which a mind reserves for disaster. They both go to try and save it at the same time, and this makes the problem _ten times worse_. If the fumes had removed Jeremy's filter, then it looks like bad fucking news just from the spread of the truth puddle. That's not even mentioning all the solution that coats their outstretched hands, or their ankles from their soaked-through socks.

“That was my fault,” says Ryan, as they freeze in place and watch the widening spill.

“Yeah,” Jeremy replies, very carefully. “It was.”

“…Think we can brew another one?” 

“Easily,” he says, and careful goes out the window, leaving him wishing he could keep his trap shut. “You're the most talented potion mixer I know.”

Ryan's blush strengthens. “You're the best at practical spell casting, though. Do you... Do you really think I'm _perfect_ …?”

 _“I hate you,”_ Jeremy wants to say, but instead, he says, “yeah, I made a mental list and I love everything about you. I don’t mean it when I complain. About _anything_.”

“Like… Even the cow?” asks Ryan tentatively.

“ _Yes,_ even The Cow, if you wanted to keep it I’d just make you do all the cow chores. Also, I kinda blame it for this whole thing as well, not just you… Whatever. It’s your fuckin’ cow.”

Ryan flicks his fingers to shake off truth potion droplets. It doesn’t really alleviate the issue.

“…Do you like me?”

“You’re _evil_ ,” says Jeremy, when really he means, _of course, don’t do this to me, I can’t--_

“That’s not what I asked,” Ryan retorts.

A simple ‘yes’ might have saved him. Jeremy’s stupid fuckin’ pie hole has other ideas, though: “I more than like you,” he says, feeling his face screw up with the effort of trying to supress his honesty. “I really, _really_ do - I like how you cast spells, even when you get it wrong. And I like how you keep our ingredients garden stocked. And I like coming home to you, and I especially like that I can come home to things like a surprise cow.”

“You like coming home to me,” Ryan says. He peels his socks off.

Jeremy bites down on his tongue until the pain shoots through his mouth. It’d be great if he could stop himself from saying any more stupid shit.

Curiously, though, Ryan doesn’t seem perturbed in the slightest. In his sockless-feet, he plants himself firmly in the middle of the pooling potion. After all… The damage has already been done. Jeremy tries to count the ripples, so that he doesn’t have to look at Ryan’s face, because hell if he’s not real fuckin’ scared of what truthful expression he might see.

Whilst he’s looking at their feet (together, in the spilled potion), he sees a hand (creeping up the hem of his t-shirt, locking the digits in the fabric, not letting go).

“I want you to know,” says Ryan quietly, somewhere near his hairline, “that what I’m about to do is the most truthful thing I’ve done since taking that B grade in Poison Development.”

“You deserved an A,” Jeremy mumbles at his shirt, until Ryan tips his head up and kisses the _fuck_ outta him.

This isn’t some _reserved_ first kiss, or a _Ryan Haywood, timid, awkward, shy_ first kiss. It’s not like that at _all_. It starts out with lips sliding over lips, and then, oh my god, that’s _Ryan’s tongue in his mouth_ , and a little bit of biting, and it’s dirty without provoking any mortifying noises from him. Fuck, _fuck_ , even if they never did this again it was the clumsy, inelegant truth of it all.

“Ry,” he says, and gets another mouthful of the man in question. There are wet hands on the side of his face, and there’s probably truth potion in his sideburns at this point. “ _Ry_. We gotta open a window, it’s evaporating--”

And as he utters the fragment, there’s a sharp sizzling sound. Ryan drops his hands from Jeremy’s jaw like he’s been electrocuted, and when Jeremy opens his eyes, they’re surrounded by clouds of thick steam.

“I got it,” he breathes, and wrenches open the door.

As it billows into the front yard, Ryan looks like he remembers he has limbs, and sets the cauldron back on its stand to busy himself.

“How long does this last for?”

“Probably another twenty-five minutes,” Ryan says, and doesn’t turn to meet his eye.

“Well,” says Jeremy, “you wanna… go be truthful some more in my room?”

Even before Ryan whirls around to gape at him, Jeremy can see that the back of the guy’s neck is crimson. He jabs in the general direction of his bed, and looks at him expectantly:

“I’ll let you name your new familiar,” he adds.

And three further truths come out of that sentence alone. The first being that they’ll get a perfect mark on their potion when they rebrew it; the second being that you can be incredibly honest in twenty-five minutes, and _brutally_ honest in just a few short days following that. The third is that Jeremy is irrefutably excused from ever cleaning up Edgar-Shit, _ever_ , because goddamn if he doesn’t let Ryan keep the fuckin’ cow.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on [tumblr](http://futureboy-ao3.tumblr.com/). I promise I don't bite. ♥


End file.
